Former U.S. President Barack Obama dipped into November’s midterm election fight for the first time on Wednesday, endorsing 81 Democrats in 14 states with a focus on young, diverse candidates and lower-level races.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer said Sunday that the Democrats would seek to introduce a provision to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who heads the Justice Department’s Russia investigation, to the budget resolution that is under consideration by Congress.

President Donald Trump’s critics are arguing that GOP calls for the Justice Department to investigate Hillary Clinton and Democrats’ ties to Russia are an effort to distract from the real Russia investigation, into potential Trump-Russia collusion.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives widened the lead over their Social Democrat rivals, according to a poll published on Tuesday, which showed her party and the pro-business Free Democrats winning enough seats to govern together.

The Neil Gorsuch nomination puts Senate Democrats in a bind. If they try to oppose his appointment by filibuster, Republicans can respond by eliminating the 60-vote threshold required for Supreme Court candidates—and then whacking the 11 Democrats who represent red states (10 of whom are up re-election next year) for corrosive partisanship.